


L'Esprit de L'Escalier

by Hopie (hopiecat)



Category: Magic Kaito
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 20:10:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4933657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopiecat/pseuds/Hopie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saguru just wants fifteen minutes alone with Kaitou Kid. There's something on the tapes that he thinks the rest of the department might have missed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L'Esprit de L'Escalier

The largest discrepancy that the police department had about Kaitou KID was height.

Saguru hadn't immediately noticed it himself – height was most difficult thing to guess from grainy photographic footage and newspaper clippings; there were a hundred things that could extend height going on outside the borders of a photograph – but coming face to face with KID was an altogether different thing. The matter'd weighed on his mind like a stone until he'd puzzled out what was so _strange_ about KID, what didn't seem to match the photographs and newspapers and footage that the department had neatly stockpiled and filed away from before.

Two minutes into his fourth rewatch of a heist involving an ostentatiously loud gemstone from some member of the nobility his parents weren't acquainted with, Saguru'd seen the glaring error.

The KID on tapes was gargantuan compared to the one in real life. Not just _bigger_ physically, but broader, more muscular, somehow sharper than the KID he'd seen. No grabbing for a split-second plan. No madcap rush through a shrieking alarm system.

And a clear two to five inches of height taller than the KID he'd seen on rooftops, which, if corroborating data on height averages for appropriate ages—

 

They'd met, again, on a rooftop, 11:02:45PM, sixteen seconds after the last peal of the alarm. He'd assumed KID would come back to return the jewel, and by making sure most of the doors were locked, there was really only one place he could get in – through an inconveniently high open window on the sixteenth floor. It was decorated sparely, from a magazine by someone with an only vague understanding of how colours and motifs worked, but it had the one door and Saguru'd taken the key to it. The display was approximately two floors down, which was arguably better than the alarm-riddled first floor and the subsequently camera-infested fifteen-floor staircases KID would have to climb up to to replace the jewel.

A clatter from the window; the hissed sound of a curse and a knee banging against the desk. KID detangled himself from the hanger with an almost careless grace, and then said, "I can see you skulking in the shadows, Detective. Maybe next time wear something dark to cover that golden head of yours?"

"A good idea," said Saguru, "which I will take under advisement."

"Do so. It's very bad form to let your prey see you. Ruins the dance of capture." KID tipped his damnably bright hat at him, then reached into his pocket, "Since you're here – I might as well leave this with you. You'll wake up perfectly safe. Tied up, maybe—" KID clicked his tongue (a nervous habit; he could see his fingers twitching on his free hand, another absent shift backwards to put the desk between them, _KID wasn't used to confrontation_ ).

"Before you do that," said Saguru, "may we speak?"

KID regarded him with suspicion (head tilted forwards, hat shimmying over his brow [too big for him], and the moonlight fell with just enough poetic drama to shadow half his face while leaving the rest unrecognizable even if he didn't have suspicions, another half-step back) and said, "I don't speak to detectives," (as though he should already know, irritated snap to his words that suggested he'd thrown KID off and KID did not appreciate it) "or critics. They're one and the same, and the conversation – well. You've never performed and had someone criticize you?"

"I played Romeo in a school play once," said Saguru, straight-faced.

KID's eyes widened, and he snorted in a remarkably childish way. "I --- see."

"I attempted to talk to Paris and refused to drink the poison." And now KID was _outright_ laughing. "I did not make a successful Romeo. But I wasn't as bad as Mercutio. He hopped about shouting 'tis only a flesh wound' until one of the teachers scooped him off stage in the wagon we used to transport scenery."

KID's bright, childish little snicker of laughter echoed around the office. Dispassionately, it was a nice sound. He doubted anyone who worked here had laughed quite as much or as brightly.

"Not a romantic, I see," said KID, "somehow, I'm not surprised."

"I am romantic," Saguru disagreed, "but any romance that ends in murder and suicide is quite simply not for me. I lack the patience to be romantic to the point of blithering idiocy."

"Very Sherlockian," KID said. And his smile, for that bare two second stretch it appeared, was not a stage smile. It had far too many teeth and too much enthusiasm.

Then it faded; and Saguru knew what he'd ask next. "I'm telling you this," said Saguru, "because, as I stated, I just want to talk. You may sit there in the shadows. This building is entirely abandoned, and I'll wait here if you would like to check." He pressed his hands into his pockets (KID flinched, stretched his shoulders wider [rather like a startled bird; he'd have to share the allusion later] and put more distance between them as though he was planning to take a running leap out of the window) and pulled out his cellphone and a pair of handcuffs. He placed them down on the desk between them, pushed them over into a ray of moonlight between the keyboard and a framed picture of a late-model Nissan.

"Gun, too," said KID, after a pause.

"I don't carry one," said Saguru, mildly alarmed. "I'm seventeen. There's a seventeen year old who carries a gun?"

"Ah, Detective. If only you knew. Show me – No. I'll see myself, if I may, Detective?"

"By all means," said Saguru, in his driest voice, and raised his arms.

KID kept his head ducked when he came closer to him. It wouldn't have helped, in any case. Saguru _knew_ who he was, knew fairly everything about him except the most important detail, but he didn't think bringing that up while KID was patting his way across his body was a good idea. Their tentative not-quite-agreement would certainly flounder if he was as gauche as to mention him by name.

KID had light, soft hands, but he didn't know what he was doing. Interesting.

"This is strange," KID said, taking his place back on the other side of the desk, "but a gentleman never turns down a polite request – even if it tests his limits. Very well. We can talk, for a little bit. What's troubling you, Detective?"

Saguru inclined his head. He gave it a few more minutes, taking his time to source out a lacquered wooden chair sitting close to a round glass coffee table, setting it in the moonlight that poured in through the windows. There. It would leave his face uncovered – for all the good it would do KID, since he had exceptional control over his own expressions, had studied enough to know how to make his face do what he wanted on about 75% of occasions. Still, it would help. It conveyed a good message.

"You're taller on tape," Saguru said, folding his hands together on his lap.

KID blinked. "It's hard to tell how tall anyone is on tape," he pointed out and, after a second, climbed onto the desk. Legs folded. Face still in convenient shadow. "You might as well have said 'your suit is gray on tape'."

"Perhaps with ordinary means," said Saguru, "but I have a strong computer at my disposal. I analyzed two images: one from 1991, the other from last week. There's five to ten inches between the 1991 KID and you. You're shorter. Added to that, he's broader. Certainly bigger."

"Padded shoulders and lifts, perhaps?" KID commented innocently. His fingers twitched again – no. Not twitched. Shuffled. Shuffling an invisible pack of cards.

"Perhaps. But lifts would only add incremental height. There were other things, of course. Cadence of voice. Manner. Plus, the older KID was, well – older."

"Was?"

"I presume he is no longer in operation."

KID gave a hollow little chuckle. "How clean you put it, Detective. 'No longer in operation'. It sounds—" He caught himself, a second before he said something else. Cleared his throat. "… Nevermind. What does this have to do with me? I assume you're going to ask how I shrunk, huh?"

"No. I'm going to ask what's so terrible in your life that a boy in his teens would allow himself to be willingly shot at and made to endanger his life."

KID's hands stilled. He wished he could see at least a part of his face in the moonlight, but he had a feeling that he was staring at him much like a cat who'd seen their owner arrive bearing a wash-basin and shampoo. "I—"

"You could just be short," Saguru conceded – give him time to gather his thoughts, that would help. "But in about 80% of cases, a height of your stature indicates that you can't be much older than me. Perhaps even younger. Possibly younger. The KID from 1991 was at least in mid twenties on all known recorded media. I'm very sure of that. You… perhaps seventeen, not older than that."

When KID spoke again, his voice had a rasp to it, and his words were a second slower than before. Panic – he'd heard it before, a couple of times when the heist had very nearly ended in KID's capture. "Haa. Should I be happy that you think about me so much, Detective, that you would spend all your time looking at pictures? My, my. We need to get you a lover. Potentially someone that does not drink poison to get away from you."

Saguru raised his brows, and countered, "or one that is not the daughter of my enemy?"

KID's smile slit the darkness to ribbons. "I'm afraid if you're so pedantic, you will make enemies easily. Lighten up, detective."

"Don't think I don't know that you're distracting me. But I have no reason to tell you who you are—who I think you are. I suppose it hasn't escaped your notice that I'm of a similar age to you?"

"Not that it has anything to do with the situation, but yes. You wear your trenchcoat and walk straight-backed to look older, but it doesn't work." KID shrugged, went back to shuffling his invisible cards, but slower, now.

Sudden flash of temper. Saguru breathed through it, counted. One."No. Because my father is rich, and influential, and he has shoved me in a place where he expects great things from me while overlooking the fact that there are people working the same case." Two. "But my point is: I am your age. I chase thieves who shoot at me and put me in danger. Let me stress this again: _I am your age_." Three. The anger was tapering off, sliding back underneath a blanket-thick coolness he clutched to. Fact. Detail. That was what he needed.

Saguru softened his voice. "I worked murders in England. As a consultant. I've been shot. Twice. And I have been more scared in these last two years than I ever thought it possible to be scared. And I am _seventeen_. You high-dive off of buildings. I chase criminals who could overpower me." Fear crept into his belly, the memory of former cases flickering through his head like a movie reel – mangled faces, torn arms, scared children, the sudden dark of a lightswitch flickering out seconds behind him, pain, fire—"and therefore, I understand that it must be hard. This cannot be your plan."

KID picked up the picture of the automobile. He twisted the frame in his hands, turned it with the back to him, and popped it open. His hat wobbled on his head, slipping too far to the right, then too far to the left. "What makes you so sure," said KID, "that this isn't for the thrill of it? For the rush and the pleasure of performance?"

"You're seventeen," said Saguru. "At your age, everything is the rush and pleasure of performance. Therefore, if that were so, why not pick a safer medium? Join an after-school club. Practice drama."

"Childish things," said KID.

"You are a child," Saguru pointed out.

KID paused. He gave a crooked shrug, the hat swaying on his head. "Young at heart," he said, smiling, slapping a hand to his chest, "though I don't suppose you know what I mean, Detective. You must have been born middle age! Maa, I can't imagine you being young."

Evasion again, facetious commentary to throw him off the mark, trying to insult him – and if he had spent less time studying KID, perhaps it would've struck several sore points. As it were, Saguru smiled at him, small and tight, and waited.

KID's smile slipped off a second later, leaving his face still as a kabuki mask. "What do you care, anyway?" he said, after a few minutes. "Young or not, I don't think the law would be lenient on a thief. And it won't help you catch me."

"It wouldn't," said Saguru, "but it would help me help you."

"Eeeh? I don't get it."

"It's very simple," said Saguru. "Yes, I do have to catch you. That is the nature of my work; the nature of yours is to evade me. But capture is an ugly, necessary part of my work, the same way dodging people trying to kill you is yours—"

"I don't know what you're—"

"But—" said Saguru, raising his voice to speak over him, "—you've technically done nothing wrong."

KID's mouth snapped shut with an audible click.

A moment later, KID said, "I'm _fascinated_ to hear your justification for this. I'm a _thief_."

"An astonishingly bad one," Saguru said.

"Hey!" Real affront darkened KID's voice, and a click-whirr of mechanical gears sounded from his corner of the desk.

"In the definition of thief," said Saguru, "that is. You retain nothing that you steal. You put more money into taking a highly guarded object than you gain in return. From a purely economical standpoint, the whole business is hardly cost-effective for you – unless there's some warehouse sale going on on hand-gliders and modified smoke-bombs, that is. All you do is vex the police. In the eyes of several law courts, that's finable, at best."

"Are you inviting me to do _worse_ , Detective?"

Saguru chuckled."I wouldn't recommend it. The fact that you're an inept thief might very well keep you from stricter prosecution."

"I'm a perfectly capable thief!" KID snapped back, "I don't see _you_ slapping handcuffs on me, Detective. A thief's nature is to _get away_."

"A thief's nature is to steal and keep. You seem to have misplaced that step."

"I don't like owning what isn't mine."

"Which takes us back to my point about the law – I doubt you can be prosecuted for _stealing_ if you haven't actually stolen anything."

"A matter of semantics, Detective."

"All law is, to some extent. It's distressing, but true: a good lawyer can wiggle out of any loophole or use a slight of tongue against you." Saguru scowled (London 2010 _your honour this child's testimony cannot be valid in court_ not guilty--), "it's not a particularly honourable loophole, but I felt honour-bound to mention it."

"Why?" The desk creaked; KID finally took off his hat, set it aside. "Are you trying to lull me into a false sense of security, Detective?"

"No. As I have stated, I want to help. I believe I can help. You are not beyond help, KID."

"You'll forgive me if I don't believe you. It's only in my nature to distrust words coming from a policeman. And especially one I've embarrassed. Maa, you can't be so _noble_ , can you?"

Flex of the fingers, _12345_ , breathe. "Nobility," said Saguru, "has nothing to do with it. I am a talented detective. I choose to employ my skills to capture criminals. When I feel they have done nothing wrong, I try to help – that is my nature, KID. I help those who can't help themselves."

"Judge and jury, eh?"

"If I need to be. The law is—" _6789_ "—a complicated issue for me."

"Ah." That single noise lingered in the air for a minute. Then KID laughed. "I may be a bad thief," he said, amused, "but you're a worse cop."

It stung, which KID would have expected, and so Saguru stiffened against the outward signs of insult – narrowing eyes, gritted teeth, fist-curled fingers. He breathed out, listened to the beating heart of his watch, breathed in again. Held it. KID stood in his vision, a column of smoke and white salt, glowing underneath the moonlight. And _out_ , "that may be true," said Saguru. And it still _stung_. "But we're hardly speaking about me. And I doubt you had as much choice to become what you are."

KID cocked his head to the side. Without the hat, he looked headless, only a half-moon gleam of silver near one eye indicating there was anything but darkness above his neck. "There's always a choice," said KID, his voice soft. Almost pleading. His hands went back to shuffling, and popped a card out of midair—an Ace of Hearts.

"No," said Saguru, smiled thin and sharp, "occasionally, there is no choice. I never wanted to be a cop."

The ace of hearts dropped down to the table. He watched it turn to smoke (disintegrating flash paper ignited by the way KID thumbed at it? A second burning card switched out for the first?). Before he could figure out which, the flash paper popped, and a mountain of white paper flowers sprang up from the smoke, each one crawling out of what looked like the desk.

Trick or not, it made him smile. And he heard KID chuckle, soft and warm, in the dark.

"You like magic," said KID. Amused – pleased? Pleased.

"Doesn't everyone?" said Saguru, and reached out to touch the petals of one curl-petalled rose. The indentations of music notes flowed underneath his thumb, softened gray on cream white. "I attended several magic shows in England. I was fond of them."

"Did you want to be a magician, then? Instead of a cop?" KID waved his hand, and the flowers melted back down into the desk, leaving behind a scattering of cards, every one of them gone except the one Saguru touched. It sat real underneath his fingertips, scratching paper and the smell of old ink vibrant in the darkness.

"I wanted to be a psychologist," said Saguru. "I wasn't very comfortable on stage. Magician would have been the wrong choice of career."

"Maaa, Detective. You have no imagination! No spark! And a bad manner's easy to fix. It's all just pretending. Giving the audience what they want to see, then pushing it a step ahead." With a flourish, KID plucked the rose from the desk, and held it out to him, "you do that every day, don't you?"

"I wanted to help people," said Saguru. He took the rose, twisting it slowly, trying to see where the trick was – the paper had no cuts on it that he could see, didn't bear any resemblance to the cards KID used to bring it about, had no discernible marks. "It is true I use behavioural analysis in my work, but that's only a small part of it. The rest is research and reasoning – identifying the background reason for why a person would act the way they do. There's almost always a reason."

"If you paint people by numbers," KID said, "but people generally don't like being painted by numbers."

"It's all I have," said Saguru. The cusp of a personal confession – awfully contrite, really, and rather inappropriate – sat on his tongue, and he delayed it by slipping the rose into his button hole, the top one, wondering absently if it could be considered evidence. "Patterns help me in other ways, of course. It must seem—"

"Cold." KID produced the pack of cards again, shuffling them with a noise like a thousand bird wings beating. "But you're not cold, are you?"

"I could hardly be good at what I do if I were," said Saguru. "A policeman must have compassion. Most of the criminals I have dealt with have been – reprehensible. I wouldn't spit on them if they were on fire. But the rest – the ones that write to me, occasionally – I tried to help."

"Why?" KID sounded perplexed. He fanned the cards out to him, backs down, and Saguru picked one at random (third on the right). "What could you possibly get out of helping bad guys?"

"I don't do it to get anything," Saguru said. This conversation had gone to a place he wasn't quite ready for, centred too much on him – he'd expected this, had anticipated this, but KID's overwhelming curiosity proved much more potent than he had imagined. "Much as I find it hard to explain, I do it because I like the work – but also because I can make a difference. I can genuinely make a difference."

"You're complicated, Detective," said KID, his voice touched by warmth and something else, something cold – anger? Insult? "Now I understand why you've been shot before."

"I'm singularly irritating and pedantic, I know," said Saguru, chuckling.

KID's hands snapped the cards together, and they vanished somewhere else – up his sleeve, perhaps, or into his shirt collar. They couldn't have just _disappeared_ out of thin air. "You're too optimistic," said KID (distant, absent, distracted), "you think you can just … fix the world, patch up all the problems, _make it better_ , but you're just a kid, right? You can't do all that. This isn't a movie, and you're not that _good_." His mouth twisted into a smile (sharp and bitter, somehow the conversation had tiered off into another direction and Saguru no longer could tell where the focus lay). "Kids are supposed to grow up slowly. Not have to worry about big stuff like this unless they want to. They don't have to worry about the dark. Or getting shot. Or—"

"Jumping off of buildings?" he ventured.

(KID's shoulders tightened, the hard flash of his monocle glared disapproval; then there was a minute and twelve seconds of staring, and KID's shoulders sagged).

"Or planning elaborate heists," Saguru added.

He couldn't see all that well, but the way KID shifted looked promising. Looked like he'd nodded.

"Kids should be kids," said KID, "and adults should be young at heart. But you don't confuse the two. Then it's just bad for everyone. So, Detective Adult – why did you get involved in cop work?"

"We've been talking about me all night," Saguru reminded him.

KID's grin flashed bright. "I know," he said. "It's wonderful. I'm learning so much."

"Why did you get into heists?"

"Ah, ah, ah, I asked first!"

"That's a childish argument, and incongruous on top of that."

"Tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine," said KID, and there was perhaps an 80% chance he had not intended to say it, because his voice teetered sharply into nothing when he stopped talking, and it looked as though KID had scooted back across the desk like he was planning to run for it. The silence scraped at the question, the lure he'd dropped down there, and Saguru longed to take it.

"Very well," said Saguru, and could almost see the tension spring-coil in KID's face. "But only if you tell me the truth. I'll be honest with you. You choose to be honest or silent with me."

"…If I say nothing…"

"I won't look further. And I won't trick you."

"Pah. As if you could." But KID relaxed, and held out the cards once more.

Saguru pointed to the one on the far right end, and said, "I wanted to help people."

"You said that earlier."

"It's the truth." Saguru paused, steepling his fingers together. The moonlight shifted behind a cloud; the time was 00:04:15AM; KID had sat opposite him for around five minutes and it felt much longer. His head was stuffed full of old film-reel memories Saguru didn't particularly want to revisit, but to lend weight to his argument, he had to provide reasoning – examples. The incident.

Scroll back to years prior, six years old, alone at home for the first time (chuffed with adult pride and eager to sit down and watch the Granada series on television without interruption for _hours_ \--). "My parents had an engagement in London. I lived in Mayfair at the time –" (all glass and post-modern angles with a red painted door that his mother thought looked cheerful but really made it look rather like a bleeding mouth) "—and the servants were upstairs, finishing up the day's work." (folding ironing sweeping making the beds making sure the rooms were perfect for the following night's gala). "I sat down to watch a show---and heard one of the doors in the back breaking in. The alarm started to blare, and a man came out of the kitchen, brandishing a gun and a knife."

(six two emaciated dark hair and a dirty face close-set eyes a sharp noise and a full mouth and the alarm screaming while Jeremy Brett talked about how his mind rebelled at stagnation and the servants upstairs—darkness, inside of a cloth bag--)

"He took me to his own place, a warehouse of some sort," said Saguru, watched KID. The other man had loosened up while he was talking, was leaning forward a little as he spoke like a child eager to hear a story, "and tied me to a chair. And settled down to wait."

"How old were you?" asked KID, fascinated in spite of what he'd claimed.

"I was six," said Saguru. "and very frightened, at that point. All I knew of crime came through my father – and he worked murders. Perhaps not the best bedtime story for children, but I was fascinated in his work, and he was… fascinated at what he called the 'gift'. I could point out patterns, deduce motive. It became a game of sorts."

"Man," said KID, whistling, "all my dad ever did was—" And then he caught himself, and fell quiet again.

"In any case," said Saguru, pretending like it hadn't happened, "I was terrified I'd wind up in pieces. I'd have nightmares about people who wound up in pieces, and somehow… stuck back together, and came looking for me. And now given your rather infamous nature for mischief, I regret telling you."

KID smiled, another rare, real one, and it warmed his belly a little.

"I could tell he was unwell," said Saguru, "and not really—" (the ropes biting into his wrists the smell of fish and docked machinery the reek of two-week-old cat food and cat piss and the man mumbling to himself and pacing a hole in the floor) "—cut out for it. He seemed in two minds about the whole thing, and kept… crying, almost. Looking at me, and then looking at the floor. And crying. So I asked him if he was alright."

"The man who abducted you?" Kid spun a card on his fingertip, turned it into a dove that he cuddled to his chest like a cat, "you asked the man _who abducted you_ —"

"He had extenuating circumstances," said Saguru, softly. "A family to feed – his house was getting taken away, he'd fallen on hard times. Bad luck. It drove him a little mental, is all. He wasn't --- cruel to me, didn't hit me, didn't yell at me to be quiet. When I cried, he came to wipe up my face. Asked if I was hungry. So I asked him why he was doing it. Why he'd risk his life for this." ('there are things,' he said, dabbing his face, 'worth risking my life for' and Saguru six years old didn't understand what he meant in the vaguest terms but _what would Sherlock do_ and the older man wiped up his face further and then took a packet of crisps from his pocket, untied one wrist so he could eat and Saguru absolutely didn't want to wasn't hungry but he ate a little pushed it back--)

"He told me," said Saguru, "and I told him there were other options. That his family would most definitely suffer, because any money he'd get after releasing me would be traceable – and taken back. I told him the only way he could keep it was to kill me."

"You're a loon," said Kid, very seriously, "a maniac. He could've killed you!"

"I'd have been dead either way, then," Saguru said, lightly, "so it didn't hurt to try. I asked him if he could kill a child. Even to save his own, it'd put a strain on him. And I could see him weighing it – could he do it, would he do it. By then, I assumed my father had been called, that the police were looking for me, so it was a matter of biding time, strictly speaking – but I wanted to help him."

('I have to,' he said, raised the glinting knife, 'I have to otherwise I'll bloody starve and so will my wife and my children—'.

'How old are your children?'

'They're---one's six. The other's eight'. Jack and Lucy. They're --- they're good children. Deserve the best, really. You—how old are you?'

'I'm six. But Dad says I sound like a grown-up already.')

Smell of rotten cat food.

Saguru shook his head. The scent dissipated like ash, like a fading voice, and Saguru was back in the present. "It wasn't hard to convince him to let me go," said Saguru. "We talked about his children for a while. I told him – nobody'd seen him come in. I could tell my father that I'd been rescued, instead of kidnapped – that there'd be a reward. We came up with a plan—and that was it. He took me to a police station, instead. Said he'd found me on the streets and had been taking care of me until then. I corroborated everything, and my father gave him a substantial reward."

"He kidnapped you," said Kaito, "so you paid him?"

"Out of desperation and terror," said Saguru. "You could hardly fault a starving cat for eating a mouse."

Kaito opened his mouth, shook his head. "… I don't get it," he said. "I really don't. You took --- so much risk. For someone you didn't know."

"He just needed help. Once I knew why he was doing it, well… it would've been loutish to do anything but help him. Get him the funds he needed. I couldn't, in good conscience, promise something that I then wouldn't give."

"He was a _criminal_ ," KID stressed, as though Saguru hadn't gotten the point. "You owed him nothing but jail."

"Is that what you think I owe you?" asked Saguru, resting his cheek on his fist.

KID fell quiet, for a moment, and then two. "…. Maybe. I'm a thief," he said. "And that's where I'm headed."

"You're a thief for some other reason," said Saguru, "probably a dangerous one, since it involves dangerous things. But no, prison … shouldn't be a given thing. These cases need to be judged on a per-person basis. The only reason the law should exist is as a baseline for --- decency. To judge whether or not a crime has been committed in its _simplest_ terms. But then --- there's always extenuating circumstances, reasons not to respond with jail or fines." Saguru shrugged. "I don’t like the idea of punishing someone who turned to crime because they had to."

KID's silence could, Romantically, be seen as agreement. Then the thief spoiled it, by shrugging his shoulders and walking the card between his fingers into thin air between them. He didn't even want to speculate what manner of wires and lines there were to make it levitate.

"A crime is a crime," said KID, but his voice lacked conviction, and then there was a half-second pause, "… so what do you think I deserve, then? A slap on the wrist? Accolades?" His mouth twisted into a smirk, "maybe a medal?"

Saguru thought about it for a moment, and then smiled. "… Help," he said, quietly. "I think you need help."

KID's bloodless cheeks warmed up. The red popped on his face like ink, and it was only there for a second or two before the thief ducked his head and stood up.

He was much shorter than the tape. About Kaito-Kuroba height. And Kaito-Kuroba weight. "Speaking from personal experience?" he asked, all sharp edges and cutting humour. "You _are_ a baby in a man's world—"

"With very little chance of getting out of it, yes," said Saguru, before KID could say it and make it a mockery, "and yes. Sometimes, I need help. I need someone to pull me out of the case I'm in. Do you – understand how to work a murder case? You stare at dead bodies until your eyes burn. And with an eidetic memory, well—" Saguru shrugged, "--I see the dead everywhere. I know more corpses than I know living friends."

"You need more friends," said KID, sagely.

"You'll realize it's not easy," said Saguru, with a softer, smaller smile, "when all I talk about is corpses and time and thieves. But, I manage. I wouldn't leave this career anyway – I can do a lot of good with it. But you – well. If you need the help, you know where to find me. You have my number."

"I don't, actually," said KID, silkily, and Saguru reached for his wallet, only to stop halfway when he saw that the card KID was levitating was one of his business cards, with his number on the back.

Saguru chuckled, bowing from the waist. KID's shoes were shiny white leather, synthetic, scuffed at the edges and likely rigged to—"it's been a genuine pleasure," said Saguru, his head still low, "I hope to meet you again, KID."

"I'll put on a special show, just for you," KID promised, and didn't bow – so rebellious!—but he whipped up a paper flower out of nothing, and stuck it up into his hair.

For a single, heart-stopping, breathless sort of second, Kid's bare hand brushed his face, and Saguru felt it shudder all the way down to his toes. His eyes widened a fraction, his breath caught for two microseconds, and the world faded into grey at the edges of his vision – did KID lace his gloves with poison? – but it was all so brief, and returned so quickly to normal, that he had to put it off to hormones.

Flushing, Saguru nodded, and turned towards the office door, hurrying away. "The rooftop door's open," he said, "I'll lock the one below. Goodnight, KID."

"Goodnight, Detective," KID sang, and a white blur whipped past his vision and hopped over the railing and down four flights without any discernible wire.

Thieves were not good for blood pressure.

 

Two days later, 11:09:00PM, a knock at the door. Baaya had gone home for the night and he was alone in the house in Denenchofu prefecture. Watson on her perch, chirping into her wing. Wind outside, rustling the Japanese maple. His library had a fire lit, and the warmth extended to that door, and beyond it to the hallway, but nothing else.

Alarm by the gate hadn't been tripped. Saguru checked the security screen, saw nothing but an empty space, and considered not opening the door. He'd been kidnapped once before; he'd known what it entailed.

Then he saw the flower, blood-spotted white paper, and opened the door with one hand on his taser.

"Over here," he heard, ten steps to his right and one ahead, near the koi pond two metres away from the house. He stepped outside, cracked grass beneath his heels, walked on slippery cobblestones until he saw a shape in white.

KID. KID's hand clasping his right side. KID's blood on the snow. Saguru erased the traces of it, shoveled snow over it with his foot, and went over to him.

"How bad?" he asked.

"Knife," said KID, voice breathy with pain. "Help me. You said you'd –"

"Shh," said Saguru, took him by the other arm, and escorted him inside.

The house in Denenchofu was more a museum piece than a house, but it came fully stocked with all the essentials a detective's son might hope to need – including a multitude of first aid kits, and several very reputable and discreet private doctors. If it was any worse than he'd anticipated, then a doctor would have to be called, but he couldn't tell with KID's clothes in the way.

Down the hallway one right turn down another hallway and into the library, where the warmth and glow of the fire wrapped around them like a hug. KID's face had lost several shades of colour, he'd go into shock if he wasn't warmed, and Saguru bullied him down into a chair.

He took off his hat, left the monocle on for the peace of mind it'd give him, and took the first aid kit's scissors to the shirt. Snip snip snip fabric falling to the ground bloody and sodden and ripe for burning Kid was astonishingly well built for a half-starved boy and blood had streaked his chest and dripped down his belly and—

It was a nasty graze, went down the whole of his oblique and over to his hip, but he'd been lucky: it hadn't fractured bone or severed an artery. A clean hit, through and through.

"This is going to hurt," said Saguru.

KID grimaced, "doesn't it always?" he complained. "That's what they say in movies." His fingers shook; he was terrified, Saguru could tell without asking, because his eyes were wide and his voice was skipping several beats and his hands couldn't stay steady which, for a magician, was a matter of self-control and not something he should have trouble with.

"I'm sorry," said Saguru, "but I'll be gentle. I promise."

KID nodded, and gritted his teeth, offered him his gored side.

Nasty business, cleaning up wounds. In his head, Saguru had it all pinned down in numbers, but it was a drastically different matter when his fingers were slippery with blood and he couldn't hold the needle in one without feeling it skitter and slip out of his grip, and he didn't know how much he needed to clean it. He cleaned the wound out with sticky yellowish fluid that stung and burned like _hell_ (saline solution, for the bacteria) and shut his heart out to the hiccupping little noises Kaito made, when the pain was too much.

So much blood had poured out of him. He'd known that, of course, that a child could hold approximately 2.5 litres of blood, or enough to paint a small room--- ( _from wall to ceiling to floor and everything sticky-wet and reeking of fruit flies and metallic tang)_

"Saguru?" said Kaito, "talk to me. Tell me anything."

"I've never actually done this before," said Saguru, first thing in his head.

Kaito huffed a laugh, sharp and short, "not comforting."

"Christ," said Saguru, and his hands trembled once, "alright, alright." He paused, steadied himself, _one two three four five six_ \--- "what do you like to do when you're not off being a thief?"

"I'm not sure—"

"Kaito," said Saguru, and the twitch and flick of Kaito's jaw could've been pain, was more likely _thought_ , "I'm covered in your blood. I can find out who you are easily."

"Blood analysis is only so useful," said Kaito, and then he sighed, his shoulders shifting, "ow!"

"Sorry," said Saguru, busy working (what came after cleaning? _Stitches_ ), neat, precise, half a centimeter apart, _if it's infected_ —"I really should've called a doctor."

"No doctors," said Kaito, tersely.

"My cousin's doctor," said Saguru, "he's MI6. My cousin, not the doctor. Very discreet. Lives in Japan."

"Your cousin or the doctor?" said Kaito, grunted in pain, "ah--- _shit_ —"

"Both," said Saguru, "I'll call him anyway—" Abandon needle, wash hands, hurry down one hallway to the phone, rifle through the _phonebook_ underneath the phonebook. Beep, shutter. "Hello? I need your help. Saguru Hakuba. Jack's cousin-- Thank you."

And back to the library, his floor now streaked with blood where the crumbled up bandages and everything lay, Kaito blinking woozily down at the mess on the carpet. Saguru knelt, pushed index and forefinger against the pulse beating thread and low beneath his ear, and then looked at the first aid kit.

Wrapping him up wasn't difficult. He could do bandages, even when there was _so much_ blood, when they had to be _so tight_ , he swore he'd break some of Kaito's ribs pulling.

"Hurts," said Kaito, the first real thing he might've said all day, and Saguru hummed his acknowledgement, but didn't let himself get dragged down to that level, that level where he _felt_ how much it had to hurt.

"It'll be over soon," he said, and Kaito blinked at him, once, twice, then not at all.

"Kaito?" Silence, thready pulse still beating, but growing weaker. Shock? Saguru tilted his head down onto his lap, tilted Kaito's head back and brought him closer to the fire, closer to where the colour showed up other scars – hundreds of other little scars. Glass. Bullet-wound. Knife. Hapless little marks here and there—

"Hurts," said Kaito, fainter now, and grabbed hold of Saguru's hand, "don't go. Don't – leave me."

"I won't. Of course, I won't. Hardly a manner befitting a gentleman." He laughed, didn't feel it. "Or a cop. What sort of bloody cop would I be, letting  a _thief_ walk around alone in my house?"

Kaito's mouth flicked up at one side, razor-edged like one of his cards, "a bad one," he said, "… a trusting one. You."

And then he was quiet, and Saguru was alone with his thoughts.

11:10:20PM. Kaito Kuroba (156cm, 60kg, black hair, blue eyes, pale skin) was passed out unconscious from blood loss and shock on his lap because someone had gone at him with a knife, most likely with a blade of 5 to 7 inches, maybe a small tanto dagger, but more likely to be a hunting knife from a sporting good store. The criminal had to have hit during or before a heist, but there'd been no heists today, which meant that someone was watching Kaito or knew where he lived. A seventeen year old boy.

Did the Yakuza use knives?

A bell chiming. Saguru eased a pillow from the sofa, placed it down beneath Kaito's head, and went to answer the door. Taser in right hand, open with the left, after checking in the camera mounted above his door—Ah, yes. Dr. Nikko.

"Where is he?" Brusque, sharp, busy. Unregistered former army doctor, unkempt blond hair in a mess over his forehead. "What did your dumbass cousin do now?"

"It's something else," said Saguru, and led him into the library. Watson woke, watching them through gold-flecked eyes.

Swearing. The doctor rolling up his sleeves. Hiss of medical bag opening.

"Hold him down," and there was still _so much blood_ everywhere.

It took five minutes sixteen seconds to finish. Kaito woke – thrashed – fought – screamed – but he held him down by his good shoulder, laid his full weight on him until Kaito screamed and screamed for nothing.

Dr. Nikko, bloody hands, blood on his hands, blood on Kaito again, neat black stitches going up one side stitching him shut like some grotesque doll, cleaning solvent, bandages, compression, bandages—

"Saguru," said Dr. Nikko, "you'll need to stay up. Change them when they start to bleed. Can you do that for me?"

"Yes," said Saguru.

"I can't stay," said Kaito, and his face filmed over white when the doctor pressed on his stitches, "ow ow ow ---"

"You're not going anywhere," said the doctor, glanced down at the blood-streaked floor, "clean this up," he said, "where's the mop?"

"I'll –linen closet, two doors down, one hallway up, it's next to the downstairs bath," said Saguru, "Kaito, is it alright if I lift you upstairs?"

Burbled laughter, "I can't really fight you," said Kaito, something bitter and hard snaking in underneath his words, "go for it."

Kaito weighed approximately five kilograms less than he was supposed to – from stress, he imagined. It couldn't be easy getting food down when people were trying to kill you. Up the stairs, taking each one carefully, walking in the dark in a house he knew by heart.

"Nobody else lives here?" said Kaito, "nobody'll find me?"

"It's just me," said Saguru. "It's a big house for one person, huh?"

"Yeah," said Kaito, and didn't say what was on his mind, which was probably something like, _your parents left you all alone knowing what you do_? To which he could've said, _I could ask you the same thing_ , but that would lead to a fight—

His own bedroom, cluttered with work, too uncomfortable for Kaito. He carried him to a guest bedroom one door down, fresh linens on the bed, open window where the snowy breeze had cleared out the scent of the must of closed-up rooms. Laying him down on the sheets, he turned down the other side of the bed, and helped him in, covered him up tight, then glanced around. Went to the window, closed it.

Kaito's eyes were drooping already. "Are you going to leave?"

"No," said Saguru, "I'll come back. I need to check on the doctor."

"… Promise you'll come back?"

His heart ached, one second, two seconds, was he sick or something? "I'll come back," said Saguru, and got out of there before Kaito could read his face.

Downstairs, the library looked normal, like nothing had ever happened. He extinguished the fire, and went upstairs, Watson ghosting overhead and to the perch in his room.

He went to Kaito's, and pulled a chair out by the fireplace, busied on lighting it. Warmth. Kaito needed lots of warmth.

It blazed in the grate like a burning heart, and the red made him think, again, how much blood there was in a person, and what it felt like on hands.

"You came back?" said a quiet voice, soft and sleepy, from the bed. His heart twinged again, sharp like breathing cold air, and Saguru let it.

It felt – nice, somehow.

"I came back," he said, and settled down in the chair for the night.


End file.
